SARS not yet developed into domestic threat

(U-WIRE) MANHATTAN, Kan. – Severe Acute… SARS not yet developed into domestic threat

(U-WIRE) MANHATTAN, Kan. – Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, is a newly discovered viral disease that has recently been reported in Asia, North America and Europe. Originating in China, the disease has infected 2,888 people and has taken the lives of 108 people.

There have been 149 cases reported in the United States, including one possible case reported in Wichita, Kan. However, no fatalities have been reported within the United States.

Jay Reppert, physician at Lafene Health Center, said there is no report of the disease spreading in the United States, and there is no reason for people in the community to be concerned about contracting the disease.

SARS is most widespread in areas including Hong Kong, Vietnam and Singapore. There are now several treatments, but they continue to be tested to evaluate their effectiveness.

“There has been a tremendous amount of work done and information learned in the last three weeks, but there are still many unknowns,” Reppert said.

Despite the warnings, there is still at least one group of Kansas State University students planning on making a summer trip to Asia.

Julie Kurr, junior in elementary education, said the leaders of their group have been in close contact with the officials in the city they will be traveling to.

“So far, SARS hasn’t been detected in the area where we will be,” Kurr said. “SARS is localized in certain areas of China, and we will not be traveling near those cities.”

For now, the group plans to continue with its trip as scheduled, but there are still concerns among students and their families.

Reppert said people in the community should be reassured that SARS does not seem to be spreading and is not a great threat in the United States right now.

“Only about 3 percent of recognized cases have been fatal, and most of the cases have been identified as people over the age of 25,” he said.

-Kelli Pitman

Kansas State Collegian (Kansas State U.)

Texas Tech professor indicted on 15 counts in plague case

(U-WIRE) LUBBOCK, Texas – The Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center professor arrested in conjunction with a plague scare in January was indicted on 15 counts Thursday.

The charges against Dr. Thomas Butler cover a variety of crimes, including illegally transporting the bacteria and making false statements to the FBI and other federal agencies involved in the incident.

Floyd Holder, Butler’s attorney, said he was surprised by the number of counts in the indictment and unhappy with the federal government.

“I’m disappointed that they think it’s necessary to prosecute a great American, one of our leading scientists and a great patriot for doing what he thought was his duty,” he said.

At this point, there will not be a plea bargain, he said.

“We’re looking forward to our chance to go to trial,” Holder said.

Vice Chancellor for News and Information Cindy Rugeley said the system does not have a comment on the indictment. All employees will be cooperating in the investigation, she said.

According to records from the U.S. Attorney’s office, on Jan. 14, Butler told FBI agents that 30 slides of Yersinia pestis bacteria were missing from his laboratory and had been missing for three days.

In a Jan. 13 written statement to Special Agent Dale Green, Butler stated he met with the laboratory safety officer when he noticed the slides were missing. He knew the pathogen had been destroyed, he said in the statement, so there was no threat to the public.

He also acknowledged in this statement that he made a misjudgment by not telling the safety officer earlier the bacteria had been destroyed, and he did not realize it would cause such an extensive investigation.

Butler also told Dr. Donald Wesson, chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine, that he could not account for all of the vials, but he was confident they had not been misplaced.

-Heidi Toth

University Daily (Texas Tech U.)

Stetson University paper shut down after profanity-laced April Fools’ issue

DELAND, Fla. – One of the state’s oldest college newspapers was shut down this week and the entire editorial staff was fired after publishing a profanity-filled April Fools’ Day issue that included racist jokes and a sex column advocating rape and domestic violence.

“We pushed some buttons that may not have needed to be pushed,” sex columnist August Brown said Thursday.

Stetson University on Wednesday suspended publication of its student newspaper, The Reporter, for the rest of the school year. Members of its staff said they were given 15 minutes to clear their belongings out of the office as the locks were being changed.

The Reporter, which the school boasts was the state’s first college newspaper after its founding in 1887, has had an annual tradition of poking fun at the faculty, student groups and itself with an April Fools’ edition renamed The Distorter.

But school officials say the students went too far.

“There’s not much in this year’s Distorter that you can laugh about,” Michelle Espinosa, dean of students, said Thursday. “We believe very strongly in students’ need for autonomy. But the students do assume responsibility for their editorial decisions.”

The newspaper had been under pressure from the administration to tone down the content of recent editions. After the April 1 edition, school officials said they were “inundated” with calls and e-mails from upset alumni, faculty and students.

Several students at the campus said they thought the punishment exceeded the crime.

“It was a little offensive, but it was obviously a joke,” said Liz Burdett, a freshman majoring in international business. “What happened to the First Amendment?”

Because Stetson is a private institution, it can restrict what the student newspaper publishes, said Mark Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center in Arlington, Va. However, he questioned the ethics involved in the university’s decision, saying it raises serious questions about the university’s commitment to freedom of speech.

Though no longer affiliated with the Florida Baptist Convention, Stetson is still considered a conservative school. For example, alcohol was not allowed on its DeLand and St. Petersburg campuses until 1995.

– Tania deLuzuriaga

The Orlando Sentinel (KRT)

Student puts seat in popular law school class up for grabs on eBay

DAVIE, Fla. – Nova Southeastern University prides itself on teaching entrepreneurship and offering what a magazine survey called the nation’s most technologically wired law school.

So when first-year law student Ryan Vescio got himself a spot in prominent professor Bruce Rogow’s coveted constitutional law II class next fall, what did he do?

Put it up for auction on eBay.

“Rogow’s Constitutional Law 2 Class” appeared this week on the virtual auction block, sandwiched between AA batteries and a commemorative stamp panel.

Vescio offered to trade classes with “the lucky winner” of a semester with Rogow, known for representing the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board in the 2000 presidential election dispute and celebrity lawyer F. Lee Bailey in his disbarment, among other high-profile clients.

The auction was, Vescio says, intended just to lighten the mood at a school clenched with pre-exam tension.

“We study about all these serious, stern topics, and everybody, I think, needs to just have a joke now and then,” said Vescio, 23, who grew up in Melbourne, Fla., and graduated from the University of Central Florida last year.

But to Vescio’s surprise, some fellow students took his joke seriously. The offer drew 19 bids of up to $225 before the law school administration told Vescio Wednesday to cease and desist. He promptly did.

“We were impressed by the entrepreneurial nature of it, but offended … that this is making a mockery of what is a serious attempt to create equal opportunities to take classes,” said associate dean Pat Jason.

Vescio sent out an e-mail apology. Jason said administrators don’t plan disciplinary action against him but will tell students to stop soliciting class swaps through school e-mail.

– Jennifer Peltz

South Florida Sun-Sentinel (KRT)

Before Baghdad can return to order, buildings must be disarmed

BAGHDAD, Iraq – U.S. forces struggling to get Iraqi help policing the streets and reopening schools are encountering an extraordinary request: Please disarm my backyard first.

In one stunning discovery Sunday, a software engineer led two Marines to an orange trailer a block from a middle-class neighborhood – with four huge missiles stacked inside. On first inspection, Marine Lt. Michael Cerroni, 27, of Carthage, N.Y., said they appeared to be Soviet-made Frog-7 missiles, capable of carrying high-explosive or chemical warheads.

“I just found it, and I don’t feel safe about it and neither should you,” said Cerroni, backing away from the site. He then dispatched a removal team.

In another discovery, Marines raided a school last weekend, routed Fedayeen militia fighters and found row after row of suicide bomb belts, neatly sewn into fashionable brown leather cowboy-style vests. They were loaded with ball bearings and explosives. U.S. troops also found briefcases packed with explosives and a huge stack of membership cards bearing names and pictures of the Saddam Fedayeen.

And in yet another find, Marines found more than 5,000 rocket-propelled grenades stacked floor-to-ceiling in another school, as well as antitank and surface-to-air missiles stored in the school. U.S. forces had already made 30 dump truck runs outside city limits and blew up the munitions, Cerroni said, “and we’re still not done.”

The discoveries underscore the monumental task facing U.S. troops as they try to shift from fighting the Fedayeen and other pockets of Baath Party resistance to bringing food and water and restoring peace to this 2,000-square-mile metropolis with as many as 6.4 million people.

Sunday, someone announced over a mosque loudspeaker that the Marines wanted to help reopen schools and establish electricity, and 30 neighborhood men came to the clinic compound, guarded by a single armed amphibious assault vehicle and about a dozen troops.

The lieutenant asked for their support in policing the streets and help reopening schools by today. That’s when a 38-year-old computer software engineer took him to the trailer, its back door swung wide open, revealing the four 9-foot-long missiles.

“We’ve seen so many rockets. My jaw just dropped. There it was, right on the side of the highway. Anyone with a tractor truck could have backed up and driven away with them.”

– Carol Rosenberg

Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT)